South expects to sell natural gas from 2020

South expects to sell natural gas from 2020

Natural gas exploitation should be up and running around 2020, said acting South Cyprus government spokesman, Victoras Papadopoulos yesterday.

A meeting on energy matters took place yesterday, at the Presidential Palace and included an analysis of the process for extracting and processing the gas.

Referring to the construction of a terminal, Papdopoulos said this building had not yet begun, but a date for the completion of the terminal would be given once planning was finalised.

In reference to anticipated volumes of gas and revenues, Papadopoulos said “we will see this in due course, when we are certain about the total amount of deposits of natural gas and their quality.”

A gross reserve of 7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas was discovered in late 2011 in A1 well in block 12. Noble Energy will carry out an appraisal well later this month. Following this discovery by Noble Energy, South Cyprus has granted concessions for natural gas exploration to ENI/KOGAS consortium in blocks 2, 3 and 9 within South Cyprus’ EEZ and to Total for blocks 10 and 11.